Story:Kings of Strife/Maria
Maria= Maria Zorphan is a main character of Kings of Strife. As a girl with literally no knowledge of the world she suddenly finds herself in, she struggles to find who she truly is as well as survive in a tumultuous state of being. Profile Personality Upon being initially introduced, Maria is extremely naive and innocent, as if she had lived for a very little time before her discovery by Crono Silverius. She is inherently polite and curious most of the time. As she grows attached to Silverius over the short time they are together, however, it becomes apparent that she is a very caring and kind individual who truly wants the best for those she cares about and loves the world around her. In this sense, it is perhaps the most tragic that the very person she cares about is one engulfed in the traps of war and conflict. Beneath her meek exterior, however, it soon becomes obvious that she holds some very serious secrets that belie hidden abilities. Appearance Maria is a relatively average sized young woman, with a thin yet curvy build. She has long, cascading violet hair. She prefers to keep it in a long, tight braid, allowing only a fraction of her hair to flow over her face. Maria has dark red eyes (which turn an unusual shade of golden when seen as the Chosen Knight) and pale skin. When happy, her face takes on a calm, content look, but when upset or agitated, her face forms a frown of quiet fury that can also be seen in her eyes. Backstory Maria, as she is known, is only a partition of the Chosen Knight's consciousness boiled down to its basic personality. She was created after C0, as the Chosen Knight is codenamed, fled Ouroboros's clutches in the Prologue, through a self-placed Tyrant Illusion that sealed away her own memories and powers. The point was for Maria to become an amnesiac and find herself trapped underground (where she locked herself, as the Chosen Knight), eventually leading to her starvation and death. Such a death would leave her body missing and would leave Ouroboros years behind on their plans. However, this backfired - Crono Silverius found her coincidentally as he was fleeing Ouroboros, as well. The mercenary freed her. Silverius had the Wind Crystal, and Maria's long-term proximity with the Crystal began to activate her magical abilities, thus breaking down her mental barrier. Eventually she begins to realize that she was fated to lose the "self" she was and return to her vicious, powerful normal body. When confronted with the Blood Knight, Maria gave herself in to Ouroboros, leaving Silverius with the knowledge that she loved him from their first meeting. Abilities When first introduced in the story, Maria is an inexperienced, weak girl who often doesn't have the heart to injure people. It shows in her archery, and her early accuracy is horrible at best. However, as the story moves on and she gains more experience, she also grows more jaded and more ruthless, and her fighting style evolves. At first, Maria's plan of attack was to always stay in the back, away from enemies, and attempt to attack them from long-range. Her speed, attack speed, defense, and damage are incredibly low. As her style evolves, however, she quickly becomes very powerful. She can deal immense damage from both close and long range, whether it be by sniping multiple targets before they can get close to her, or by stabbing and cutting close-range enemies with arrows while bludgeoning them with her bow. When facing a crowd, she can shoot off many arrows at once, but this is usually the limits of her crowd-control, and she is indeed much better suited at attacking small groups of enemies. |-| C0= In actuality, Maria is the Chosen Knight of Ouroboros, whose true personality is one of a cynical and extremely self-sufficient warrior. As almost the opposite of her Maria persona, the Chosen Knight (whose codename is C0) is prideful and extremely ambitious. She takes her duties as a warrior of Ouroboros very seriously, and believes in following the Leader's orders to a T. She is very sheltered, though, and eventually begins to doubt the destruction that the Leader wishes on the seemingly beautiful world around her. The Chosen Knight's main attribute is Suspicion. Profile Personality She not only wears a different wardrobe and now wields a sword in addition to a bow, she is also a new woman. Once mild-mannered and submissive as Maria, the Chosen Knight shows herself to be bossy, calculating, and arrogant. She does share some similarities with her Maria persona, though; C0 is often taken aback by sublime natural scenes, and she can be a romantic when she wants to. (This is very rare.) Appearance C0 is physically identical to Maria, but she wears her long violet hair down and free, and usually has a gold tiara atop her head fashioned into a crown. She usually wears the dark olive cloak of a typical Ouroboros member, although beneath it she likes to wear a bodysuit of black and purple accents ending beneath her butt, along with matching tights. Along with this outfit she usually wears black high boots and dark violet armor (gauntlets, chestplate, etc). Backstory Abilities As the Chosen Knight, Maria is much more aggressive and offensive-oriented. In this form, C0 still uses her bow, it manifests as an ethereal result of her Tyrant abilities. For the most part, she retains her same zoning approach, more or less, but now has a much higher focus on approaching and destroying an enemy while they suffer from the status effects her bow inflicts. Her stats are ostensibly more focused on melee attacks and ranged power, forgoing defense and slightly improving the rest of the stats. Usually in possession of the Crystal of , C0 wields the magical artifact with terrifying ease. *Eyes of the Tyrant: Like every Serpent Knight, the Chosen Knight has complete mastery of both Tyrant Eyes. This grants her superhuman reflexes and the ability to foresee almost anything and anyone in her vision, only limited to other wielders of dual Tyrant Eyes. *Tyrant Illusion - Ocular: Perhaps C0's most favored method of attack, she can induce illusions in anyone who makes eye contact with her while she has both Tyrant Eyes (as long as said person doesn't have any T.E. themselves). Said illusions can be anything, from mental torture to a pleasurable dream to a nightmare that instantly removes consciousness. These illusions can only be broken by T.E. wielders with strong willpower. *Tyrant Illusion - Manifest: C0's main form of offense. She summons a sword and a bow out of pure dream energy, and these weapons are as sharp as steel. To fire her bow, she summons reality portals and 'fires' similar ethereal arrows. Potentially, she can manifest anything she wishes into existence. Can be exponentially taxing, although the bodies of Serpent Knights have been specifically bred to handle the Tyrant abilities. *Tyrant Illusion - Reality Alter: The ultimate power of the Dream Crystal, this is the ability to change reality as one sees fit. The possibilities here are literally endless. Quotes Gallery File:Maria.png|Alternate render File:Maria Alt 1.png|As the Chosen Knight Music *''Main Theme: Memories of Nothing, originally *''World Map Theme: Blindness, originally Blindness :*''Dungeon Theme: *''Normal Battle: Ephemeral Range, originally Soldier *''Boss Battle: Dark Oracle, originally Nightmare Knights *''Final Boss Battle: Ancient History of Worldly Self, originally Revive! Infinite History Notes *Primary appearance referenced from here.